KEY POINTS:
New Zealand's Brendon Hartley was the sensation of the Macau Grand Prix in China overnight, setting a blistering new record on the last lap after an extraordinary fight back to third.
The Palmerston North teenager catapulted from 20th place on the starting grid to snatch a podium finish
in the final laps of the most prestigious F3 race of the year.
Hartley overcame four days of Macau mayhem, charging relentlessly throughout Sunday's Grand Prix in his Red Bull Dallara Mercedes. He avoided a series of crashes that required two periods of safety car intervention and, with his record-breaking late charge; was just four seconds behind the race winner after 15 chaotic laps.
Hartley's stunning pace throughout the weekend included a new 'all-time fastest' lap time on one the world's toughest street circuits during the morning warm up session; and the new Macau lap record as he charged from the tenth row of the grid to the podium.
Just five days after turning 19, the Palmerston North teenager confirmed his reputation as the quickest young talent in International Formula 3 by setting fastest laps throughout the weekend. But last Thursday and Friday were a different story.
The Macau Grand Prix began badly for Hartley on Thursday when he was sidelined with a seized gearbox at the start of the first practice session.
That setback forced him to play 'catch-up' during the rest of practice and qualifying on Thursday and Friday and he was disappointed to be only eleventh on the grid for Saturday's 10-lap qualifying race to determine the Grand Prix grid.
There was another setback for Hartley at the start of the Saturday race. A rival slammed him into the barrier at the first corner and he had to limp back to the pits for repairs to the front left suspension.
In spite of slightly deranged suspension and mismatched tyres, he rejoined the qualifying race two laps down and set the fastest lap on his recovery to 20th place.
Hartley's lightening speed was confirmed in the early Sunday warm-up session when he lapped the 6.1km street circuit in 2min 11.07sec. In stark comparison, pole position for the Grand Prix had been set the previous day by Dutchman Carlo van Dam in a Dallara Toyota with a time of 2m 12.772sec.
Van Dam trimmed his qualifying time during the warm-up but was still 0.7sec shy of Hartley's time. Lap records can only be set in racing conditions but Hartley's lap time was the fastest ever achieved by a Formula 3 car in the 26 years the best European F3 teams and drivers have been racing at the Macau street circuit that is lined with stone walls and steel barriers.
Hartley's performance with a Mercedes engine was even more impressive considering the domination of the latest Formula 3 engines from Toyota and VW at Macau in 2009.
Van Dam's pole position was backed up by young Japanese driver Keisuke Kunimoto claiming third on the grid with another Toyota engine and Edoardo Mortara was fourth fastest qualifier with the latest generation VW engine.
Kunimoto won Sunday's Grand Prix the second year running that Toyota has won at Macau while Mortara was just 1.7sec behind with the VW engined Dallara. Hartley third placing and fast laps salvaged the day for Mercedes because fourth place went to the Finnish Red Bull driver Mika Maki in another VW-engined Dallara.
